“Hang on though,” Mum says. “We should tell her what’s happening first.”
I don’t care, I don’t care, I just want to shove my head under the pillow and crunch my eyes shut and hope I see something different when I do. I don’t want to be in the room with him, his body, his hands, his face, his smell, his nonchalance.
She tells me they’ve seen a realtor, that they can make a profit on this house and “flip it” pretty quickly. We’re going to move back to the UK, live somewhere “nice and bijou” while waiting for this house to sell and for the tenants in Birch End to find somewhere.
“And you can go to uni there, and we’ll be near Robin again.”
“Great.” I manage a small smile, still avoiding eye contact. My belly is emptier than it’s ever been and it gurgles loudly. I can’t face food after all. “I need to lie down.”
As I walk upstairs, I hear my mum ask Drew what happened last night. I hear her mention the whiskey, the glasses. She must know. She must know and has folded it down like origami and slotted it away. Choosing a new “bijou” house in England instead. Or maybe she just thinks that what happened is okay. Maybe that’s what I’m supposed to think too. Who the hell is left for me to ask what I should think now?
ROBIN|1998
It’s after ten, but Robin can hear the raised voices as she approaches the house. Her exhilaration from hours of frenzied band practice gives way to dread as she turns her key.
“You can’t just do nothing, Callum, that’s not the way the world works,” her dad’s saying.
“I’ve got ambitions,” Callum’s saying, in his soft voice. “You’re talking like I want to go on the dole for the rest of my life. I just don’t see the point in going to university.”
“Fine,” Hilary says, “we don’t mind that. But you need to do something.”
“What’s Robin doing?” Callum huffs.
“She’s got the band—” Jack says, and Callum hoots with sarcastic laughter.
“That’s not a job! That’s a hobby. I play guitar too. Why doesn’t that count?”
“It’s kind of a job,” Hilary says. “The band have earned a bit of money. They’ve played a couple of concerts.”
“Weddings,” Callum says defiantly. “And pubs.”
“Where have you played?” Jack asks, as Hilary tries to stop him.
“Well, nowhere, obviously, because I’m just a gigantic disappointment.” A chair scrapes and Callum appears in the hall, goes to push past Robin but stops. They’re toe-to-toe. She reaches up and puts her hand on his shoulder. “Y’all right?”
They’ve danced around each other ever since the fallout over Rez. Sliding in and out of rooms without eye contact, polite nods at dinner, bolting meals fast and without fuss. More often than not, Callum leaves soon after, a car waiting for him outside, driven by Rez or one of his scabby entourage. “He can’t exactly come in, can he?” Callum snapped at Hilary a few days ago. “Robin made it very clear he wasn’t welcome.”
Callum breathes in hard but lets it go again. “Yeah,” he says, chewing the inside of his mouth and dropping his head onto her shoulder. “Just a bit fucked off.”
It’s the longest they’ve spoken in weeks.
“Want to play guitar?” Robin says, her face serious and hopeful. “I can show you what I’ve been working on.”
He pauses. “Okay, go on, then.”
They troop upstairs. Robin heaves her Epiphone SG off her shoulder and props it in the corner, picks up her old acoustic and sits down. Its belly is covered in stickers, whited-out band names and symbols scratched and flaking. She runs her fingers over them, blurred memories of summer days spent carefully painting them on together.
“So,” she says, putting her callused fingers on the strings and looking at Callum. “This is something I’ve been working on, but the bridge isn’t right. You wanna help?”
“Sure,” he says, lays himself down on his belly to listen. Within a few chords, he’s asleep.
Robin wakes up first the next morning, still wearing her clothes and arm sore from being cricked around a guitar neck all night. She goes downstairs to find Hilary at the kitchen table, neat stacks of invoices and receipts, a crunchy thick calculator and a pot of tea in front of her.
“Hey,” Robin says.
“Hi.” Hilary slides her thick bookkeeping glasses from her nose and shakes her hair a little behind her. “Want some tea?”
“Yeah, thanks.” She waits a beat but can’t help but interfere. “Hilary, I’m really worried about Cal,” Robin says. “And I don’t want to be a grass, but if I don’t say something, I’ll regret it.”
“What’s going on?” Hilary frowns.
“He’s just not himself, you know? All he does is hang out with Rez and smoke weed and drink. He’s got this amazing brain and he’s doing nothing with it.”
“You’re both eighteen, Robin. Even I’d had the odd joint at your age, and I don’t want to clip his wings and control him like his father did.”
“But he’s not just experimenting, he’s drifting miserably along. And he’s choosing to spend time with Rez over any of us. He’s drifting away from us.”
Hilary takes a deep breath and pours them both another cup of tea.
“Maybe you’re right, and I don’t like it either. But if I start putting my foot down, he’s going to bolt.” She thought for a moment. “Here’s what I think we should do….”
Robin hadn’t liked the idea, but Hilary had invited Rez over for Sunday lunch anyway. Callum had agreed but wanted assurances that no one would “grill him.”
“I just want to meet the person you’re spending so much time with, love,” Hilary had said. “If he’s special to you?”
Callum had looked down at his feet, shuffled about. “Yeah, he is.”
“Well then,” she’d said.
“Well then,” he’d answered.
Rez had arrived dead on time at 1:00 P.M. that Sunday. He had some garage flowers for Hilary and a bottle of Bell’s whiskey for Jack. “Where d’ya steal that from?” Robin asked, and Rez had frowned. “Robin!” Callum snapped. “I was only joking,” she’d sighed, blushing and angry about it.
Rez had looked so strange there, sitting at the table in a shirt and trousers that must have been borrowed from someone bigger.
Callum had given him encouraging smiles when he thought no one was looking.
Rez had his greasy hair pulled back in a ponytail and smelled like he might have got aftershave on. Bad aftershave, Robin had thought, probably bought from some dodgy guy in the pub. Or stolen.
“So,” Hilary had said as she loaded the plates with peas, “are you at university, Rez?”
Callum had coughed.
“I’m working, actually, Mrs. Marshall.”
“Oh yeah?” Jack had asked. “What do you do, Rex?”
“It’s Rez, Dad,” Robin had prompted, trying to show Callum she was on his side, but he glowered at her.
“What do you do, son?” Jack asked.
“I’m a welder.”
“Ah.” Jack looked pleased. “It’s a good line of work, that,” Jack said. “I used to know a guy who made a killing welding, did it industrially. George whassisname. Wato was it, Hilary?”
“No idea, Jack.”